A delegation from the High Authority of Audio-visual Communication, led by its Director General Mr. Jamal Eddine Naji, paid a visit to the National Press and Audio-visual Council (CNPA) in Moroni, the capital of Comoros Islands – which is a federal republic with a population of over 800.000 people,  and that gained independence in 1975– from 25^th to 29^th September 2018. The delegation was composed of Mr. Najib Bouizermani, Director of Information Systems at the HACA and Mr. Adil Bourbat, technical manager in charge of reporting systems.  This visit came after several meetings and exchanges between the two institutions, including a visit paid to Morocco by representatives of the CNPA, which was created on July 2012, headed by Mr. Mohamed Jaafar Abas (A graduate of the Institut Supérieur de l’Information et la Communication (ISIC) in Rabat), aiming at delivering an expression of interest. The visit of the HACA to Moroni represented the final stage before the acquisition by the Comorian regulator of the computer systems used for the monitoring, the archiving and the audio-visual content processing (HACA Media Solution “HMS”). It should be noted that Chad, Tunisia, Mauritania, Senegal, Niger, Benin, and Belgium, already use these patented systems. Moreover, the High Authority works on preparing similar acquisition partnerships with Togo, Mali, Cameroun, Cape Verde, and Moldavia for the coming months.

The delegation of the HACA, received by Mr. Mohamed Boudouri, President of the National Press and Audio-visual Council, and 8 other members from the Council besides some technical managers, presented during the two-days meeting, all the systems used by the HACA on different aspects of the regulation. These presentations focused on the question of the reporting in and outside the electoral period, to which the CNPA showed a strong interest and a quite urgent need.  The debates also shed light on the monitoring and the proceedings related to the audio-visual programs regulation, with the mention of various objectives, missions, norms and values commonly shared between the HACA and the CNPA : political pluralism, cultural and linguistic diversity, right to information, archives, respect of deontology, etc.

Mr. Naji inaugurated these meeting at the CNPA headquarters, through presenting a historical, political and institutional overview on the regulation in Morocco, as well as the national audio-visual landscape, with relevant insights on regulatory models throughout the world. He then shared this overview with State Secretary of the Interior, at headquarters of his ministry. In this occasion, State Secretary expressed to Mr. Naji, who was accompanied by MR. Boudouri, the excellence of the multiple and historical relations between the Kingdom of Morocco and the Comoros, that this cooperation on media regulation illustrates concretely and usefully.

During this exploration and information visit, Mr. Naji and Mr. Boudouri also paid a visit to the Office of Radio and Television (ORTC, public service company), to get information on the production, the broadcasting and archiving equipment, as well as the human resources in charge of the content or the management, not to mention the training programs of the ORTC and its cooperation agreements with other institutions, including the SNRT, the ASBU, the Union for Radio and Television Networks for Africa (URTNA)… Director of the HACA, accompanied by President of the CNPA, also visited the private radio “ Hayba FM”, where he had meetings and professional exchanges with its CEO. It is to be noted that the radio is of a general interest, and thus benefits from a high audience rate.

For their part, Misters Bouezmarni and Bourbat undertook, during the four days of the mission, the elaboration of the necessary diagnostics and studies on equipment, spaces and human resources at the disposal of the CNPA, as well as the equipment offers available on the Comorian market, in order to prepare a forecast Précis to initiate the transfer process of technologies and competences from the HACA to its archipelago counterpart. The process would include sequences on the material installation, the on-the-spot trainings for the Comorian teams in Morocco, and the in situ and distance tests. Knowing that the CNPA should ensure the regulation both of the media installed in the capital (capital of Ngazidja Islands or Grande Comore) and the media occurring in the two other islands of the Union, namely Mohéli and Ndzouani…Giving a total of 4 private televisions, in addition to the public radio and television (ORTC), 12 mainly local private radios, which broadcast on limited pools in one of the republic’s three islands. According to representatives of the CNPA, the population of the island of Mayotte is closely monitoring the media of the Union, even if this fourth and historical part of the archipelagos agreed in 2011, through a referendum, to adhere to France.